


Tales Half Told

by CloudDreamer



Series: Demon Eyes [12]
Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Dr Carmilla's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Neglect, Mild Gore, Reflection, Symbolism, but it's not shown this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: She reflects on her Mechanisms, and the tales they would never have gotten to finish.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Jonny d'Ville, Dr Carmilla & Nastya Rasputina, Dr Carmilla & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Series: Demon Eyes [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698556
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	Tales Half Told

She sees them like flowers just about to bloom. Plucked too soon, they wither. There’s a light to them, an intense glow that burns with potential, and she watches as the world extinguishes them. Their eyes close, vision blurs, and she steps in, something hot in her chest. Not this one. 

The world is cold. It’ll take away their life before they have a chance to live it. They’re flowers about to bloom into a story, and they’re flowers kept away from the light. Jonny is buried in the dusty wastes of his home. It sticks to him like the sand beneath his bare feet, but she sees golds beneath brown: in the dirt under his nails, in his eyes that sparkle with song, in the way he throws his head back and laughs with such pure joy when he thinks nobody’s looking. She sees a kid with so much to live for, so much potential, so much beauty to bring, and she holds him as he dies. 

His hands, covered in his father’s blood, shake as he clutches at his chest. A broken heart. He doesn’t know her, can’t see her chest doesn’t rise and fall with his eyes closed, but when she asks if he wants to live, to see something beautiful, something more than this, he says yes. He says please, between his sobs. She promises to show him the stars, but she can’t bring him into blossom. 

The new life is a shallow reflection. Pyrite. He laughs long, but it’s shallow. It’s desperation over joy. And she can hardly look at him, knowing she broke him. They walk through battlefields, and where she sees tragedy, he sees something real. The blood she can’t escape, he spills like a joke. The heart she built for him pumps, but it doesn’t feel. His smile, full of broken teeth, is pretend. He covers himself in belts, lies, and viscera to conceal the cavity in his chest where his joy should be. His love. 

And she can’t love him like he deserves. Not when all she can see is her failure.

Anastasia is silver. She slips between shadows like a ghost, laughter trailing behind her like wind chimes. She follows playmates Carmilla can’t see, perched outside the palace’s stained glass windows as she is. Nastya is the heart of an empire cold as the darkest nights, made with wires through skin, but all she sees is the handcrafted paradise. At least, that’s what she’s supposed to see. Her story takes root as she wonders and wanders. She digs into layers of code, stripping away safeties, determined to find truth to justify her father’s claim to the throne, but all she finds is hunger. The hunger of a people who she tries to help, who she defends, but who tear her apart anyway. She’s defenseless. Her blood waters Cyberian soil for a new tale to begin, one of a hollow world ruled by a fragment of a mind, but Carmilla has no interest in yet another revolution cannibalizing itself. 

Not when there’s a girl dying in her arms. So small. She’s considered this a hundred score since Jonny, discarded as many, but Nastya is special. Special like he was, before she broke him, but she swears, she’ll do it right this time. As blood drains from her body, Carmilla kisses her on the forehead. Decay comes for the pedals she didn’t live long enough to grow. Mercury replaces her sap, too cold for something new to grow. 

She sits perched in a nook on Aurora’s bridge, occasionally muttering a handful of directions, but mostly thinking. Her arms are crossed across her knees, and she leans against the wall, feeling the warmth of skin rippling behind her. It was a little uncanny for a while, she has to admit, but she’s long since adjusted to her daughter’s peculiarities. Now the sounds of respiration, liquids rushing like blood through pipes that are also arteries, and skittering spiders are normal. As much as the emptiness in her chest, when she doesn’t remember to force breath through her tired lungs. She can’t speak if she doesn’t, can’t sing. 

Her eyes flicker, shut, then open, then shut. A certain series of clicks plays, and she understands. Nastya is awake again— Jonny shot her repeatedly when they were introduced, but he’s not going to shoot her this time. He’ll warm to her eventually, and maybe his burning heat will melt the ice she’s encased herself in. Maybe they’ll fit like puzzle pieces, his head on her shoulder. The image makes her smile, brings to mind a dozen fragmented sensory details. A field of sunflowers. Smoke in her chest, leaving her coughing. One hand on her back, one hand in hers. A plain gravestone. Knees on the dirt. It’s a sad smile. These two will never lose each other, she promises, and It’s one she knows she’ll be able to keep. This time. 

Mechanization and the granting of immortality— two separate but related processes—were exhausting endeavors. Carmilla rests her eyes, but she doesn’t sleep. Not yet. She feels Aurora reverberate through bed and listens to their distant whispers. Furtive greetings and the first notes of a new song ring out, clear as day to Carmilla from where she listens. 

And then, as the lights of Cyberia fade into the distance, she lets their beginning lull her to sleep.


End file.
